SERBIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Aleksandar Ristić and Stefan Šilobad, Law Office Miroslav Stojanović
ity which, in their country of origin, are considered equivalent to a court decision or court settlement. The procedure for recognition of foreign court judg - ments in Serbia is primarily regulated by the Law on Resolving Conflicts of Laws with Regulations of Other Countries (LRCL, Zakon o rešavanju sukoba zakona sa propisima drugih zemalja ), which explicitly defines the terms and procedure under which such recog - nition may be carried out. In addition, the Serbian Law on Non-Contentious Proceedings (LNP, Zakon o vanparničnom postupku ) as well as the Law on Civil Procedure (LCP, Zakon o parničnom postupku ) gov - ern certain procedural aspects of the recognition of foreign judgments and other court decisions that are not explicitly regulated by the LRCL. Finally, the pos - sibility of recognition of foreign court decisions as a preliminary issue ( prethodno pitanje ) in enforcement proceedings is possible and regulated by Article 46 of the LES. Aside from domestic laws, the issue of recognition of foreign judgments in Serbia is also regulated by vari - ous bilateral treaties that Serbia has concluded with other countries. To the extent that these bilateral trea - ties regulate the matter of recognition and enforce - ment of foreign court decisions, they supersede domestic laws. In that respect, these bilateral treaties may provide additional (stricter or more lenient) con - ditions that must be met in order for court decisions originating from the other country to be recognised in Serbia (and vice versa). Specific legal grounds for (dis)allowing recognition of foreign judgments under Serbian law are listed in 3.3 Categories of Foreign Judgments Not Enforced , while the different procedural approaches to the rec - ognition of foreign judgments are outlined in 3.4 Pro- cess of Enforcing Foreign Judgments . 3.2 Variations in Approach to Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Assuming that no multilateral or bilateral treaty stipu - lates otherwise, rules for recognition and subsequent enforcement of foreign judgments in Serbia are gen - erally uniform, although they may be somewhat less strict when it comes to judgments related to personal, marital and family matters.
Provided that a foreign judgment has been appropri - ately recognised under Serbian law, it may be enforced in the same way as a domestic judgment. For more information in this regard, please see 2.2 Enforcement of Domestic Judgments . 3.3 Categories of Foreign Judgments Not Enforced Without making any specific distinctions with respect to the types or categories of foreign judgments, the LRCL provides specific cases in which a Serbian court will refuse to recognise a foreign court decision, as follows: • if the party against whom recognition is sought was unable to participate in the underlying proceedings before the foreign court due to procedural short - comings; • if there is exclusive jurisdiction of Serbian courts or other authorities over the same legal matter (eg, disputes concerning real estate located in Serbia, marital and family disputes, personal status rights, etc); • if there is already a final and binding domestic decision or another foreign decision recognised in the Republic of Serbia concerning the same matter between the same parties; • if it is contrary to Serbian public policy (ie, the “foundations of the social system established by the Constitution”); and • if there is no reciprocity between Serbia and the country of origin of the foreign court judgment (whereby the existence of factual reciprocity is assumed, though it may be challenged). As a general comment, it should be noted that in prac - tice, (non-)compliance with Serbian public policy is often interpreted quite narrowly by Serbian courts. The LRCL also stipulates exceptions for certain types of legal matters, in which specific refusal grounds shall not be taken into account – for example, the existence of reciprocity is irrelevant for matrimonial or parentage judgments, and if the recognition is sought by a Ser - bian national, a decision on the personal status of a citizen of the country of its origin shall be recognised without testing the exclusive jurisdiction, reciprocity and similar requirements, etc.
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